July 2010

Yesterday, I attended a press conference featuring plaintiffs in the SB1070 immigration case, being heard in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. Earlier that day, the judge had enjoined parts of the law—as some have reported, she enjoined the heart of the law.

So of course those speaking at the conference were happy. In Arizona, it felt to them like the rarest of days, when their vision of the world had been confirmed, if only for a moment.

Heightening that momentous sense was Mother Nature. As media people left the conference, the skies opened up, dumping wet droplets (some call it rain) on us dry folk.

Rain! In the desert Southwest, what can be a bigger Change of Venue than that?

So on our blog’s “casual Friday,” I’ve posted some snaps I took of the rain as it came down on our appreciative heads.

(I should add that the immigration debate has infected every part of life in Arizona. A friend who saw these photos immediately joked with me, “Taking pictures while driving? Well, at least you weren’t texting … or transporting illegals. You’re a good citizen, Tim Eigo.” Ah, how our standards for excellence have plummeted.)

Follow-on to the immigration case ruling by Judge Susan Bolton has been various, to say the least.

U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva rescinded his call for a boycott. He had made the brash suggestion when SB1070 was first signed. Now that he has recommended the change, I suppose we all will be inundated with family visitors again (another unforeseen consequence of policy-making).

GovernorJan Brewer said that this ruling was just a bump in the road. Today, Arizona Republic cartoonist Steve Benson had some fun with her choice of words. (As I write this Thursday afternoon, I got notice that the state has appealed.)

Steve Benson's take

There have also been standoffs with the police. Last night, protestors effectively sealed off the small town of Guadalupe, denying Sheriff’s deputies—and city buses and others—access for more than an hour. Today, downtown Phoenix has been the site of numerous protests, and even dozens of arrests. Those arrested included activist and former state Senator Alfredo Gutierrez (who was a great panelist at an SB1070 forum I moderated earlier this summer).

Former Ariz. Senator Alfredo Gutierrez

At a press conference yesterday put on by plaintiff’s groups (excluding the Department of Justice), the groups were, as you might guess, very pleased. The AzCLU’s Litigation Director, Dan Pochoda, praised the judge’s decision. He added that the law’s preamble—which says its intent is winning the immigration battle by attrition—“infused” all elements of the ruling, though the judge has only based her decision (so far) on federal pre-emption.

Steve Schwartz, SEIU

Steve Schwartz, of the Service Employees International Union—SEIU—which hosted the press conference, called the law “a cheap political stunt.” He also used the “P” word, adding, “The law pre-empts an honest debate about immigration issues. We know there’s a problem, but it’s unrealistic to round up millions of people.”

But not everyone was wholly pleased. Representatives from day-laborer organizations called the day’s events “bittersweet,” saying they were disappointed that Judge Bolton did not enjoin enforcement of that portion of the law.

Here are some more photos from the conference.

Annie Lai, AzCLU

Jaime Farrant, Border Action Network

One of the more unique responses came into my in-box late in the day. It pitched an artist exhibition titled “SB1070: An Artist’s Point of View.”

Here is more info, if you’d like to see the law through an artistic lens:

A community reception will be held honoring the incredible efforts of community artists to shift the conversation this Friday, July 30th beginning at 6 pm.

The wall, the Arizona flag, stop signs, The Constitution, a Native American, death, skeletons, labor, border lovers, fields, The Dream Act, the Virgin of Guadalupe are but a few of the images used by artists for the premier thought-provoking exhibit entitled: “SB1070 – An Artist’s Point of View.” The educational exhibit opened at the Arizona Latino Arts & Cultural Center (ALAC) Saturday, July 24.

The show was well received and was attended by notable community leaders from Jim Ballinger of the Phoenix Art Museum, former Senator Alfredo Gutierrez, ALAC board members Francisco Gutierrez and James Fisher, and a standing room only crowd.

A broad call for artists was sent out through the community and the criteria for the show was “SB1070 – An Artist’s Point of View.” Some 30 pieces of art were submitted for the exhibit. “Every piece provides an opportunity for reflection and a point of view regarding SB1070 and its interpretation by artists. Artists provide an essential point of view and dialogue for this important sea change in Arizona’s history,” said Annie Loyd, founder/ceo of The FUSION Foundation.

The “SB1070 – An Artist’s Point of View” reception will provide the community an opportunity to unwind, recharge their inspiration, meet the artists, and converse with community leaders. Renowned artist Gennaro Garcia will be creating artistic representations of an art piece he created specifically related to SB1070 . The reception will also feature music, performances, discussion and refreshments. The reception is open to the public at no cost.

WHAT: ALAC in collaboration with The FUSION Foundation, The Arizona Hispanic Forum, Despins Printing, Mouth To Mouth Media, Community Public Relations and N’Touch Magazine, the community is invited to a reception Friday beginning at 6:00 p.m. and to experience the educational exhibit entitled “SB1070 – An Artist’s Point of View.”

For those of you in blissful ignorance, that’s the moniker for Arizona’s most recent hybrid immigration-criminal law.

Today, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton enjoined key parts of the law (not “struck down,” as the Arizona Republic headline reported).

Thus, as of Thursday, July 29, the law’s effective date, most of the meatier aspects of the law will not be enforced. That is good news for the U.S. Department of Justice, and for the other plaintiffs, on whose pleadings the judge hasn’t yet ruled. (It’s also good news for me, as my wife and I celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary tomorrow, and we were so hoping it wouldn’t be spoiled by tear gas. Call me sentimental.)

This afternoon, I will strive to be part of the tiny subset of Arizonans who actually read Judge Bolton’s ruling before waxing on about it. And I invite you to do the same.

An ABA committee’s proposal led legal news stories today. It was in regard to law school accreditation, but it may say something about trends in education generally.

The committee made what it thought was a finding of little fanfare. A generation of lawyers who thought that the ABA accreditation guidelines required law schools to have a tenure system in place was wrong, apparently.

Existing standards say “a law school shall have a comprehensive system for evaluating candidates for promotion and tenure or other forms of security of position.” The committee admits that language has been interpreted for years as meaning schools must have a tenure system. But that’s incorrect, they say.

Dean Donald Polden, Santa Clara Law School

Fair enough, you might say. Interpretations may have been flawed. So now the committee can fix the language to conform to commonly held beliefs.

Not so fast. Rather than reiterate the value of tenure in a university system, the committee has proposed the opposite: Omitting the concept entirely from their guidelines.

As the story continues, the Standards Review Committee, headed by Dean Donald Polden of Santa Clara University School of Law, “has floated a proposal that would eliminate the term ‘tenure’ from the ABA standards covering job security and academic freedom. The committee also wants to kill a requirement that law schools provide clinical faculty members with job protections similar to those enjoyed by full-time professors.”

Underlying that proposal is a radically revised view of the legal and educational world.

As the subcommittee wrote, “These arguably intrusive mandates are not the proper providence [sic] of an accreditation agency.”

“Intrusive”? The American Bar Association is concerned about being intrusive? Now THAT’S a news item.

Perish the thought. The largest association of lawyers in the world is not intrusive. It is merely a gathering of legal folk who enjoy a nice conversation, maybe some Port, and a little Parcheesi. The ABA does not seek to impose its thinking on others.

But the last time we checked, the entire point of accreditation is “mandates”—otherwise known as “values we adhere to.” Is the ABA out of the values business?

If they are interested in maintaining (and maybe even mandating) some values, they may want to take a closer look at the concept of tenure. Sure, it’s easy to opine that tenure does little for the educational process. But where do we think intellectual freedom resides? In the largesse of university administrators? In the benevolent auspices of accounting departments or development offices?

My own bone of contention with tenure is that faculty use it too rarely to speak truth to power, or to craft truly innovative research that addresses important issues. So what do we think will happen if tenure is eliminated? Will that get better?

My guess is that it will not spawn a renaissance of creativity.

In universities outside of law schools, attacks on tenure are growing more common. Administrators find opportunity in bad economic times to undermine the stakeholders who most often raise questions and insist on fair processes. Saying good-bye to tenure helps say good-bye to those uppity folk. Universities governed by the collective smarts of its faculty (think places like Oxford and Cambridge) are seen as Old-World antiquities.

To see that thinking sidle into law school governance is troubling. Let’s hope the ABA thinks hard about its next steps, and remembers it’s in the values business.

We just received the sad news that former Chief Justice Bill Holohan passed away. Here is his obituary, kindly provided by his family.

Former Arizona Chief Justice William A. "Bill" Holohan

WILLIAM A. “BILL” HOLOHAN passed away peacefully on July 23, 2010, with his family at his bedside. Bill died of complications following surgery. He was 82 and resided most recently in Peoria.

Bill was born in Tucson on June 1, 1928, the only child of Andrew Holohan and Dorothy Bennett Holohan, a member of the Bennett Arizona Pioneer family. He attended grade school and Loyola High School in Los Angeles.

Bill enrolled in the University of Arizona in 1946. Following graduation from law school in 1950, Bill was inducted into the Army, where he served in the Judge Advocate General Corp. He served a tour of duty in Korea, and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Before his deployment to Korea, Bill met his wife of 47 years, the former Kathryn Dewey. Upon Bill’s discharge from the military, he and Kay married and moved to Phoenix. Bill’s first job was as an Assistant United States Attorney. He was hired by the then-United States Attorney, Jack D.H. Hays, who would later become Bill’s lifelong friend and colleague.

In 1960, Bill left the U.S. Attorney’s Office and entered private practice. He practiced with Lou Whitney, a prominent lawyer, until Whitney’s death. He was appointed to the Superior Court bench in 1963 by Governor Paul Fannin. Bill was elected the presiding judge of the juvenile court by his colleagues in 1969.

In 1972, Bill was appointed by Governor Jack Williams to complete the tenure of retiring Justice Jesse Udall on the Arizona Supreme Court. Bill handily won re-election to this position in 1972. He served on the Court until he retired on January 5, 1989. He was Chief Justice from 1982 until 1987.

Following retirement from the bench, Bill entered private practice for a time with his son, Brian. Bill later accepted the position of Director of the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys’ Advisory Counsel, a position he held until he resigned to care for his beloved Kay, who passed away in February 2000.

Bill is survived by four children, Mark Holohan (Tracy), Ellen Lloyd (Russ) of Las Vegas, Brian Holohan, Lori Holohan of Denver, and four grandchildren. Private funeral services will be held at St. Paul’s Catholic Church. In honor of Bill and his love for his Irish heritage, a wake will be held on August 14, 2010, to celebrate the life of this special man. The location and time will be announced later.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Child Focus, Inc., a non-profit organization helping youth in foster care. Child Focus is located at 4310 S. Cameron St., Suite 12, Las Vegas, NV, 89103. Kindly note on your check that the donation is in Bill’s honor so that Child Focus can properly acknowledge your gift.

This past summer has been a social media trial by fire for me. In addition to preparing a presentation on the topic for a conference, I also posted news stories—relentlessly—on our SM channels from the State Bar Convention.

Here is my editor’s column for the July/August issue, which was just mailed to readers.

An airline seat-back pocket is more likely to yield an airsickness bag than insight into the adoption of developing technologies. But I had just that alternative happy result on a recent flight.

The occasion was my return trip from Washington, DC, where I had attended a media conference aimed at association publications people (niche much?). While there, I had the opportunity to present a seminar with two collaborators. Our title was “Make the Connection: Engage Your Members Using Social Media” (my proposed title had been “Social Media for the Antisocial,” but the “democratic” process opposed it).

My fellow panelists were creative services pros (i.e., advertising and marketing) who really knew what they were talking about. My role on the panel was to represent an association person’s view. You know, small resources, large opportunities.

The audience appeared to enjoy it, courteously overlooking my dearth of skills. But it was on the return flight that I had my best technology revelation.

As I reached forward my allotted five and a half inches toward the seat-back pocket, I expected an in-flight magazine or maybe, if I grew really bored, the SkyMall catalog. But my hand encountered an obstruction.

Reaching in—carefully—I extracted a glossy black plastic box. The obelisk that stumped characters in 2001: A Space Odyssey was immediately identifiable to the parent of a teenage child. It was a Nintendo DS.

Clearly, the former occupant of Seat 17D had vacated the plane too quickly, leaving behind a miniature entertainment device. My first impulse was to feel bad for the kid who had lost it. I imagined the haranguing he or she was receiving for being careless with expensive things.

It was my second impulse that led to my discovery. For it occurred to me that although I would certainly try to get the item back to its owner, there was no need to do that immediately. I mean, I had almost five hours of flying ahead of me. I may as well try my hand(eye) at whatever it was that occupied our youth. So I turned it on.

I gave it a try for a bit, but it felt too much like school. And besides, I wasn’t sure I want to know my brain age. I summoned the flight attendant and returned it to his care, ensuring that he wrote down the seat number.

Besides revealing my mental deficit, the exercise also exposed my technology prejudices, which many of us share.

I had assumed that neat, cool gear is owned and used by youth. But the Brain Age demographic ain’t high school. I had to hand it to a generation that would use a Nintendo game player to improve neurological function. Sure, some of us may prefer the SkyMall catalog, but fortunately we are not the majority—just as youth are no longer the majority in social media.

And I thank Bar members for sharing their insights about social media. In advance of my meeting presentation I had asked for your suggestions, and quite a few of you responded.

To conclude, here is one of the many things I learned in creating my presentation: “Social media is the land of the unpolished but often genuine experience.”

Officially I was back from vacation yesterday. But mentally, I’m expecting that to happen sometime around the middle of next week. But today being Change of Venue Day (Friday) and all, I thought I would share something from a far-flung venue.

So I’m sitting at my desk and whom do I hear from? A good friend, formerly of Phoenix, who moved last year to Toronto.

Nedra Brown formerly was the Director of Sections & Committees at the State Bar of Arizona. But she headed back north to her ancestral home, where she now practices law. (And if I were her, I would wear a powdered wig every day.)

Nedra was a fantastic colleague, and I only miss her every single day. So I was pleased when I got this morning’s e-mail from her:

Since I don’t get to share American law with you, and it is Friday afternoon, I thought I would share a judgment from the Supreme Court of Canada that was released today.

The Supreme Court of Canada sets standards for deciding remedies for a Charter (think Bill of Rights, 4th Amendment) breach.

Also remember the Canadian Constitution is only 28 years old before you laugh too loudly.

Interesting that this comes out as G20 arrest cases will be moving up the pipeline.

When Nedra mentioned the Fourth Amendment and laughing loudly, she piqued my interest. And this opinion is one worth reading.

As my stuffy law professors would have intoned, the case “sounds in” constitutional and tort law.

Haven’t grabbed you yet? Then read this first line from the syllabus: “During a ceremony in Vancouver, the city police department received information that an unknown individual intended to throw a pie at the Prime Minister who was in attendance.”

Lawyer Cameron Ward being arrested on a pastry charge

It gets worse. There was a strip search (for, um, pie filling?).

And the misidentified suspect? A lawyer. All he originally asked for was an apology. Getting none, he pursued the case, all the way to Canada’s top bench—seven years of litigation.

I leave you with one other sentence from our understated magistrates from the icy north:

In this case, the need for compensation bulks large. Mr. Ward’s injury was serious. He had a constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, which was violated in an egregious fashion. Strip searches are inherently humiliating and degrading regardless of the manner in which they are carried out and thus constitute significant injury to an individual’s intangible interests (P. 64)